Weird Stuff

I've had the weirdest experience this week.

When we returned from Santa Barbara, there was a caller id on the phone from a Robert Yates.  Now when I was first babysitting, I babysat for a Robert Yates and his sister and so I was curious about this phone call and tried calling him back, but got no answer (and no machine) so just forgot about it.

A couple of days ago, Robert Yates called again, trying to figure out why I had called him, forgetting that he had called me.  I asked him if his middle name was Elton, which it was not.  (the kid I babysat for went by "R.E." and I have since found him through Google, and apparently he is some big name poker player...I didn't try to contact him).  Since this Robert Yates couldn't remember why he had contacted me in the first place our conversation was short.

Then this afternoon, while I was on my cell phone with Ned, he called again and I let it go to voice mail.  He left this very long, very complicated message.  He "remembered" that he had contacted me before and that I had sent him a photo of myself and my husband and he rambled on and on and on and mentioned other relatives of his and thought I might be related to them.

I called him back and told him that no, I didn't know any of those people.

But then he mentioned a woman named Monica and I asked about her.  He said "Yeah...Monica Richmond" which didn't really mean anything to me until something flashed and I said "do you mean Monica SCOTT Richmond?" and he said yes.

She is his cousin, and the daughter of my mother's cousin, Chester, who has lived in Argentina most of her life.  So this Bob Yates is my cousin of sorts--I haven't figured out which level of cousin he is and he told me about the people in Argentina (gave me information I didn't give him).

 

I couldn't keep track of exactly where in the family he is, but I know that Chester was his grandfather and Chester was the brother of MY grandfather.

Chester and Monica

My mother never wanted to know about Chester because he was two years older than she was and she was very proud of being the oldest in the family.  So whenever I mentioned Chester, she acted as if she knew nothing about him.  Monica thought he'd make it to 100 but he died a couple of months before his 100th birthday, so if my mother keeps on going the way she is, she may outlive him and be the only person in her family to make it to 100....at least as far as we know.

Damn, I wish Peach were here!  Peach was the first person to "find" Monica and she would find all of this fascinating.

So I had this long conversation with my new cousin Bob and found out that there is Alzheimers in his family, but I don't know if it's in my blood line or not.  And I have his e-mail address.  And I have written to Monica to ask her to send me her email so I can tell her about my experience today.

I still don't know where R.E. Yates is, but how odd that he was the person who led me to finding this long lost relative!

---

Today Walt and I met Jeri and Phil for lunch.  This would be the other Jeri and Phil, our daughter Jeri's godmother and her husband Phil.  They spend their year driving around the country in their RV and visiting friends and relatives and this is their time to be here in this area.  Jeri and I realized we have been friends for 57 years and it seems like each time we meet, we are a little bit more feeble than we were the last time!  Last time she had a cane and I did not.  Now I have a cane and she has a walker.

But we had a wonderful lunch and a nice visit and they will be down in the Bay Area next week and will catch up with Char at that time.  Nothing better than getting together with "old" friends!

Back to Normal

Jeri and Phil have packed up and headed off to our Tahoe condo for the week (this  was Walt's mother's condo, which we now jointly own with his sister).  I was surprised at how tired I was all day.  It wasn't that the weekend was all that busy, but busier than I've been in awhile and I guess that past a certain age you notice.

Jeri had the full Grandma experience while she was here.  She saw her three times, and each time was completely different from the previous time.

The first time was the day after they arrived when the four of us (Jeri, Phil, Walt and me) went to Atria and brought a new arrangement of artificial flowers.

It was a normal visit.  The same repeating of things a lot, but hugging and sharing photos and my mother, who had been rather non-committal about the prospect of a visit with Jeri prior to their arrival, seemed to genuinely enjoy being with her again.

The next day was the day of the Nifty Fifty party.  While we were packing up and getting ready to Jeri and Phil went to see my mother again.  It was awful.  They tried calling her first but she didn't answer (I discovered yesterday she had unplugged her phone).  So they knocked on the door and she answered but it was one of her "out of it days" and she passed out on them three times.  Jeri called me and I told her to tell the front desk.  I talked with someone at the front desk and they are trying to decide whether to send her to the ER or not.

What to do? What to do?  Should I go to the party, or stay home on the chance my mother might be going to the ER? Finally, after discussion with Atria, I decided that we would go in two cars, Atria had my cell phone number and Jeri's and if they decided my other should go to the ER, they would call and I could meet them there in about 45 minutes.  Obviously, I ended up enjoying the party and did not get a call from Atria.

They put her on an "every 2 hour" watch schedule, where someone would check on her every two hours.  I'm not sure if she's still on that or not, but it was a tremendous relief to know that she would be checked on that often.

Then, the night before they left, Jeri and Phil went to Atria to have dinner with her.  At some point Jeri called to say that they had not had dinner with her and were going to get food for themselves and did we need anything?

I had visions of her refusing to eat, as she often does, stating that she doesn't feel well.  But that was not the case at all.  When they got to Atria, they saw her in the dining room eating, so they waited until she left and then went with her to the apartment.  Jeri reported that they had a wonderful time, singing and telling jokes! (I want Jeri to move back to Davis again!!)  So they left with a good feeling.

Yesterday, I went to visit and it really was back to normal.  The first thing she told me was that she's getting old, then she said she didn't feel well.  I told her what we'd been doing the past 3 days and when I finished she asked "so what have you been doing I should know about?"  She had no memory of seeing Jeri.  I realize that with her you have t enjoy literally the MINUTE because it will be gone the next minute...but the minute you are enjoying is real and she is enjoying herself in that minute.

I was there for an hour during which time she asked at least a dozen time what I was doing tonight (she ony asked twice if we were going dancing) and what I had been doing. She complained about being old, she complained about the "mess" on her patio (they are doing remodeling), she loved the artificial flowers, and she looked off into the distance and sighed a lot.  That was how our hour went.  She would pick up a little booklet of pix of Bri when she was a baby, look through it, then toss it aside in disgust.  She did that over and over again.  

And so it begins again   I was emotionally exhausted when I came home and took a nap.

Today I'll be back to deliver meds and pick up laundry, but I am having lunch with friends first, so won't try to eat with her too.

---

Tonight the Music Circus season comes to an end with a production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Music Circus is one of only four theaters in the company that were granted permission to perform the show, and we've been warned that this is not the Disney version, but close to the original book, so not really recommended for small children.

The summer theater season is coming to an end, which means that the fall theater season will be starting soon!  Since I started reviewing for the Sacramento period too it seems that theater is my life.  It's fun, but sometimes overwhelming when there are three openings a weekend back to back with three more openings the following weekend.  The nice thing is that the salary for the Sacramento writers has almost doubled in the past month and that's a very nice thing!

Flooding

This weekend has been a flood of emotions, first a bad ay with my mother, which left me wondering if I was going to the Nifty Fifty party at all, or should stay home in case she had to be taken to the ER (I decided with the Atria person, that I would go, but she had my cell phone number and Jeri's and would call if they were taking her to the ER and I'd come back.  We did not receive a call.)  I left town with a flood of emotions about that.

And then there was the flood of emotions I always feel when we get together with the Pinata People. All those memories, good and sad.  Remembering the folks who are no longer here, rejoicing in the ones who are.  Watching each of us in Generation 1 as our bodies slowly begin to break down, looking at the adult of Generation 2 and their children and remembering when we were those guys, and the kids of Generation 3 as they continue to learn about this special group, and each other.  Wishing that Father Quinn, who is responsible for this all, were here to see what his counsel has wrought!

And then today there is the flood of family emotion, with Alice and Joe driving up from Santa Barbaa, Norm and Olivia driving from Petaluma, all meeting here to see Jeri and Phil before they return to Boston.

But before that flood could take place, there was the real flood in our kitchen.  It happened so quickly and was so suddenly all-encompassing that I didn't even think to take a picture.

I was standing in the kitchen making a cup of coffee when I heard water running  I thought I had left the tap on, but no.  It wasn't coming from there.  Then I looked at the door to the laundry room and was water pouring down the door and soon, I felt water on my arm, as it poured out of the light fixture over the sink.

Walt ran upstairs to discover that the upstairs toilet had overflowed and the floor was covered with water.  Fortunately, we still have a big bag of towels left over from our puppy fostering days and I quickly soaked all of them while Walt used all of the towels upstairs to mop up the mess there.  He got the toilet to stop running, but we haven't investigated what we need to do to keep it from happening again.

We spent time going through all the things that had been soaked and throwing away food awash in "diaper rash water" (as it is known in Pinata circles).

We were about finished when the family arrived.  Jeri and Phil were out, but we sat and talked  Walt showed Norm a photo book on Hawaii, which has photos from around the area where they lived for several years.

Then Norm presented his own treasure, a vintage photo he had found of their great-great grandfather.  Norm has always wanted to know where the "Norm" came from and his mother could never remember, only that his father had named him, but unearthing some old daguerreotypes he discovered one labeled "Norman Eldred."

While they were talking about their newly discovered great-grandfather, the others (Alice, Olivia and Joe) were looking through an old book of Walt's grandmother's, telling the story of their father, from birth to high school graduation, and enjoying the photos in it.  Alice has started getting interested in the family history and this book was a treasure trove.  (It was one of the things I found when cleaning out my office.)

At 1:30 we went up to the Graduate, a brew pub about a mile from here, where we met Jeri and Phil...and Ned, who had come to join the group.

We all ordered our Grad Burgers an settled in for another visit.  Olivia and I did a lot of Trump-trashing, and well deserved it was indeed.  But my back can't take that long on a bench without some support, so I eventually moved to the other side of the restaurant to a booth, with something to lean against...and to watch them all enjoying each other.

Ned said I looked so pathetic, he decided to drive me home...he had to get back anyway because Marta was due home.  So I came back to the support of my recliner.  Walt and the others followed soon and then they were also on their way.  Jeri and Phil walked over to Atria to have dinner with my mother, but she was already in the dining room eating (yay!) and when she finished they went back to her apartment where they seem to have had a lovely visit, including laughing and singing.  Such a change from yesterday!  So that ended the day on a flood of good emotions.  Jeri and Phil head off for a week at our condo at Tahoe and then back here, briefly, before flying back to Boston.

The Last Christmas

And so the celebrations have now ended.  This was a good day, after a rocky beginning.  Walt hoped that the Christmas gift he ordered for me some time ago from Amazon, would have been delivered by now, but it had not.  He checked the package tracking and found it was last seen somewhere in Kentucky.  When he continued to find out when it could be expected, he found out that if he did not receive it by April, 1911 he should call them.  Since it is almost 100 years after that date, he decided to call.  Amazon is hot on the trail and promises to send a replacement, which should arrive before 2015.  And if, somehow, UPS finds the original package, we can keep that one too.  I hope it's something one can use two of.

Jeri and Phil arrived at the Sacramento airport around 12:30 and we visited a bit, then Phil ran some errands, Jeri and I got the bedding on their bed changed, and in the late afternoon, we packed up the rest of the gifts and took them over to Atria.

My mother was delighted and surprised (she had no idea Jeri was going to be coming to see her!  We've only discussed it every day for the past 3 weeks, including this morning).  Mostly it was a good day for her memory, though, and with three guests, she put on her hostess face and participated in the conversation, though it did only take five minutes before she reminded us she was old.

The first thing she noticed was Jeri's shoes.  Unlike me, my mother is a shoe freak and loves shoes (I'm sure I have been a huge disappointment for her over the years, since I hate shoes).  She rarely fails to notice someone's shoes.

We had brought egg nog with rum and Walt got us set up with cups of egg nog.

I got the present opening started, because we were on a kind of schedule for the evening.  My mother was thrilled with the calendar she got from Tom and his family, with all the pictures that she will look at over and over again, I know.

I had arranged for us to have dinner in the dining room and was miffed to see that the one large table was occupied.  However, the waitress told us she had set us up in the private dining room, the one that was unavailable for my mother's birthday in September.

I don't know if it was coincidence, or if the General Manager had decided to make it up to me in spades, but they had set the room up beautifully, with a table set for ten (even though we only had five)

I know Tom would have appreciated the 49er colors!

Dinner was delicious, topped off with a delicious slice of Tiramisu, and we got back to the apartment in time to pack up our things, return to the car, and head for the theater to see Into the Woods.

As I did yesterday, I overestimated the number of people who would be attending this opening weekend performance.

It was a good show and we were happy with it.  This, combined with last night's Big Eyes, brings the total number of movies Walt and I have attended in 2014 to... two!!

So the Christmas hullabaloo is finally over and looking back, it was a good holiday after all. 

Tomorrow is Mike's memorial service, which won't be quite as festive...but given the group who will be there, it just might be.

Plot Spoiler

On the off chance that you plan to see a play by a Canadian playwright named Norm Foster about four ladies playing golf, you might want to skip the last part of this entry, because I'm going to talk about the play and reveal secrets.   It's called "The Ladies Foursome."  Unless you live in Sacramento (where the play is making its American debut this week), I think the possibility of coming across this play soon is slim, but I didn't want to be accused of spoiling anything for anyone.

But my day started long before the play.

Today was Jeri and Phil's last day here.  As I write this, they are in the air winging their way back to Boston.  It's always a bittersweet time when they leave, but this time not so much bitter, as we will be visiting them soon...and I'll get the chance to meet a couple of internet friends as well, so I'm excited about our upcoming trip to Boston.

We didn't see all that much of them today, actually.   After breakfast, they had errands to run.  They took Sheila and Lizzie for a long walk.  They took the borrowed cello back to the guy who loaned it and then went for one final visit with my mother.  Yesterday, while I had the car on the other side of the state having lunch with the Pinata ladies, they, along with Ned, packed a picnic lunch and had it with my mother in her apartment.

Today when they got to Atria she was already eating lunch, so they waited around and then had ice cream and a visit with her.  Tomorrow I'll go over to bring her her pills for next week and pick up her laundry.  She certainly has had a busy week...and on Thursday Peach and her husband fly in for a week.  We won't see a lot of them, but will see them a couple of times, at least.  I know my mother has been looking forward to that, as have I.

While Jeri and Phil were gone, I got snips of Emmy commentary from The Today Show, which I had recorded, turning off the TV when I heard them coming in the house.  I also watched the latest Top Chef and a couple of regular programs that had recorded during the week.  I think that other than one Jeopardy broadcst, I managed not to subject them to any TV while here. Quite an accomplishment for someone who almost never turns off the set.

Their plane left late and under normal circumstances, we would have driven them to the airport, but I had the play to review, so they went to Bay Area by train, having the opportunity to have dinner with their friend Greg, whom they had not had a chance to see while here, since he was working in San Francisco.

As for us, there was no time for dinner, so we just headed off to Sacramento.  As we came to I-80 and saw how backed up the traffic was, we were sure we would not make it to the theater in time for the curtain (6:30), but Walt took back roads through town and around the freeway and we got there with a good 5+ minutes to spare.

The show is a very funny comedy, but with moments of poignancy and I found it compelling because of our lunch yesterday.  These are three women who have been playing golf together every week for 14 years.  They are there following the funeral of their friend who made the fourth in the group.  She was killed by lightning and in her place a friend of hers whom none of the other three know is joining the group for this last game.

The one-liners fly fast and furious as the women discuss life, love, men, sex, careers and everything but golf.  Surprises, secrets and confessions come to the surface, anger builds, explodes and dissipates during the game.  The big "reveal" was something I figured out early in Act 1 -- their dead friend was really lesbian, only I thought the woman joining the game had been her lover, and she had not, but she had met the woman's partner over the 12 years they came once a year to stay at the lodge she runs.

But these "best friends" begin to discover that though they have been close for so many years, "everybody has secrets" and they really know little about their friends' deepest darkest secrets, their turmoil and their troubles.

It made me think about our lunch group yesterday and how we have all been such good friends for more than 50 years and have shared births, deaths, and some of life's traumas, but not all.  For example, one in our group has been dealing with a relative's impending death from cancer, and had kept it a secret until yesterday. As close as we feel to each other, how much do we really know about each other, when we really only see each other 2 or 3 times a year (of course Char and I have a better chance, since we travel together).

The ladies of the Foursome left the stage with a slightly better understanding of each other's hidden truths, and a determination to make a better attempt at really being best friends from there on.

I think we left the lunch determined to keep these gatherings going in the hope that by seeing each other more often we can become closer because, as we are all in our 70s, we don't have that many more years left and as we deal with the indignities and tragedies of life, we will need our friends more than ever before.

Day 58:  The last photo with Grandma for this trip

Today at Logos ... and More

Sandy and I chatted for 30 minutes again today.  We've discovered we have so much in common it's amazing we never met before Logos.  We compared child birth stories, San Francisco stories (she lived there too, but after I left), medical office stories, and psychologists and psychiatrists we have both known.   We might have talked longer but a "talky guy" (not one I'd met before, but Sandy had) was asking about a psychologist and we started brainstorming about who it could be (he didn't have his name).  Paul somebody possibly married to Linda somebody, but that's as far as we got.

Anyway, Sandy left and I took over.  She had done very little business, most of which was bargain books.  But she still outsold me by about twice as many customers.  I dealt with more customers this week than last (about 5; I had 3 last week..."my friend" didn't even come in today!) but almost all of those were bargain books, so I don't think I broke a $20 total for the afternoon.  I bought a book, too, but even I bought a bargain book!

But I did have a few interesting customers.  An old guy (older than me!) bought a bargain book on poetry about mythical beasts.  He said "They say I'm too old for mythical beasts, but you're never too old for mythical beasts."  Then when he left he wished me a good day and a good life.

As he was going out, a woman in a grey June Allison type page boy haircut came in clutching a bargain book.  She dug deep in her purse, but found the $1 to purchase it with.

A guy with one of the ubiquitous messenger bags hanging across his chest came in to ask how business was.  He says his father has a book store on the Peninsula somewhere.  He was very impressed to learn that Susan and Peter donate proceeds to Doctors without Borders and Save the Children and that they had donated $40,000 last year.  But he didn't buy anything to help raise the proceeds!

After awhile, a couple came in and bought a Calvin and Hobbes book and one about Genetics (presumably not Calvin and Hobbes genetics)

Things were so dull, I snuck off to the back to use the bathroom and was shocked to discover three customer in the store when I returned a couple of minutes later.  None of them bought anything.

But then my favorite customers of the day arrived.

Even they didn't buy anything.  I encouraged Jeri to check the bargain books because she had $2, but she didn't find anything.

A very thin woman was looking for books about horses, but didn't find what she was looking for.  

At 5 p.m., my friend had not come in and one of  my last two customers of the day bought "the Kite Runner" and we very briefly discussed Afghanistan and the two books by Khaled Hosseini, and the last customer bought "Monuments Men" and we talked about the film and the men who saved the art work.

Susan relieved me early because we had made plans to have dinner at Atria with Jeri & Phil and Ned, so we rushed right over there and met the kids there.   It was a very nice dinner and I was one again touched by how seeing her grandchildren perks her right up.  

They get her laughing and that's what she needs more of.  When the evening was over, Ned drove home to Sacramento, Phil rode his borrowed bike across town to spend the night with some different friends, and Jeri came back here so she could show us the DVD of a concert of excerpts from A Chorus Line that she conducted recently.

All in all a very nice day.

Day 53:  How could this NOT make me happy?

Jeri's Here! Jeri's Here!

Nights when I have to get up early for something are often nights when I can't sleep at all because I'm too worried I'll oversleep.  I got home after La Cage aux Folles last night and started the review, and then I took a break, as I usually do.  But I wanted to be sure to finish and submit the review first thing in the morning, so that I wouldn't have to worry about it when Jeri and Phil woke up and could concentrate on them. So I set the alarm for 6 a.m.  And then I couldn't sleep.  At all.

Finally at 2:30, I got up and finished the review and sent it off to the paper. Then I tried to get to sleep.  I did get a couple of hours, but the alarm I had set went off at 6 a.m. anyway.  I knew I wanted to make blueberry muffins for breakfast, so I got up then, made the muffins, fed the dogs, and went back to my recliner to see if I could sleep a bit more, knowing that as soon as someone of "those people" sleeping upstairs started down the stairs, I wouldn't need an alarm clock.  Polly would be barking her fool head off.

And she did.

It was so nice to see Jeri and Phil...and later, Alice Nan.   We sat around drinking coffee or tea and eating the blueberry muffins and just having a great time. The kids decided to take the dogs out for a walk. Walt decided to go along, so all three dogs were very happy.

Alice Nan decided to go along for the exercise, though we had run out of dogs who needed walking.  This picture reminds me of following the yellow brick road...

After they returned, Jeri had to go downtown to pick up a cello she is borrowing for the week (she is learning the cello and needed one to practice on.  A guy who owns a music store doesn't know Jeri and she doesn't know him, but he knows her name from Lawsuit and figured she was OK to use his personal cello while she's here.  "It's nice to be Davis royalty," Phil joked!).  She and Phil took off for downtown in our car while Walt, Alice Nan and I took AN's car and went to Atria.

We had fun visiting.  I just love how my mother comes alive when visitors are there.  The old sparkle is back.  I had gotten to the apartment before Walt and AN, and she was looking distressed.  I asked what was wrong.  She said she just didn't feel good and thought she might vomit.  It was the old, droopy, unhappy mother I visit every day.  But when Alice Nan got there and they started reminiscing about working together at the Bank of America, my mother lost the hang-dog look and joked and laughed just like her old self.  When I asked her, on the way to the restaurant, how she felt she grinned "fine!" and when I asked about her nausea, she said it was gone.

Of course the best part was when Jeri arrived and there were warm hugs all around.  Those two have always had a very special bond and a hug from Jeri is like a magic tonic for my mother. It amazes me that with the number of people she doesn't remember, or has to be reminded about, or has to have dates written down for her, with the fact that she doesn't know her great grandchildren, or recognize their pictures, and has to be told who they are when you talk about them by name, Jeri is the one constant (well, maybe I am too).  She knows when she is coming, she recognizes her, she knows her name, and just having Jeri here has always been a great boon to my mother.  Jeri, with her unflappable optimism, brings out the best in her and I just love it when she is able to be out here for a visit.

We went to lunch at the Atria restaurant and my mother ordered her usual vegetable soup and fruit salad, but when she saw everyone else going to the salad bar, she decided she'd have a green salad too.  The waitress (Sara) was very surprised.  She was even more surprised when my mother decided to have the dessert of the day instead of her usual ice cream cone.

When we finished lunch, we went back to the apartment, where Jeri gave us some examples of her growing cello prowess. Alice wanted to sit close so she could watch better.

Walt just found the whole thing very relaxing.

Alice Nan had things to do and was going to Norm & Olivia's this afternoon, so she had to leave, and the rest of us decided, after looking at Walt, that naps all around sounded like a good idea -- and I could tell my mother was getting sleepy too -- so we told her goodbye and came home, but first we made a reservation for dinner tomorrow night back at Atria again.

Everybody kind of crashed after we got home, but I made the mistake of checking something on the internet about an article I'd written and got livid at what had been done to it, so I had to get up and Contact People.  Fortunately it was ultimately resolved (mostly, but not entirely, in my favor), but my adrenalin had been stirred up and I never did get my nap.

I suspect that with non-TV watching Jeri and Phil here, I may head off to sleep very early tonight.

Day 52: Everybody was happy especially the dogs!

Turning Straw into Gold

By 11 a.m. this morning, I was convinced Jeri and Phil and Alice Nan were dead.  Or at least mortally wounded. We knew they were headed north from Santa Barbara and were driving Hwy 101 so they could stop at the Burger Queen en route.  Whenever Walt or his sister or Jeri travel, they send one word text messages to each other along the route, letting them know where they are at any given time, so whoever is at the other end can keep track of progress.

But when 11 a.m. came, and there had been no text messages, not even in answer to my two to them, I figured the only reason was that there had been a terrible traffic accident.  I knew they had arrived in California all right because I'd had the photo of Joe and Alice meeting them at the airport.

I decided to call.  I called Jeri's cell phone and there was no answer, so I called Phil's cell phone and he didn't answer either, which made me more convinced that they were all dead.

But then I called Alice Nan.  I called her last because I knew she would be driving, but I also knew that she frequently talked in the car through her blue tooth.  She answered and the first thing I said to her was "So you're not dead after all..."

Turns out they had just forgotten to send mile markers.   They had left late and they were still a way from the Burger Queen, but they were fine.  And then the text messages started arriving - "San Luis Obispo" ... "King City"... and, as expected, eventually this photo of Phil and Alice.

I didn't get everything done I wanted to do before they arrived (is anybody surprised?), but I did get quite a bit accomplished, most important of which was cleaning off the kitchen table and making a dent in the piles on the kitchen counter.   With that done, I felt better about going off without cooking dinner and leaving them to fend for themselves (with Walt).

I had to leave at 6 p.m. in order to pick up my friend Ruth and then double back to get my colleague Jeff but I pulled up in front of his house exactly on time, which was a first, I think.

This was the last show of the Music Circus season and it was La Cage aux Folles, a show I dearly love and which I have not seen in awhile.  I was really looking forward to it and I'm afraid that by intermission, I was extremely disappointed.  But it's going to be tricky to write that in a review (so I decided to write this journal entry first).  The actor playing Albin, the flamboyant gay character, the star of the female impersonators' club happens to be black.  And I don't think his being black was the cause of my disappointment, it was his portrayal of a character I love.  He wasn't flamboyant enough, I didn't feel a chemistry between him and Georges.

(This theater comany sucks at publicity pictures.  I can't beieve
this is the best picture of Albin and Georges in the packet of publicity photos!)

The instrumental arrangements of his music were different, a blues sound where it should have been a music comedy sound, which kind of made the action drag (no pun intended).  I sent off a text to Jeri (who had arrived in Davis by that time) and told her how disappointed I was.

I will admit that the actor nailed the musical's signature piece, "I am what I am," standing there as a defiant Diana Ross, livid at his life partner Georges and their son, and that ended the act on a positive note, performance-wise.  Something must have happened at intermission.  They must have had a pep talk, because Act 2 was head and shoulders better than Act 1 and when Albin arrived in the personna of their son's mother and fooled the son's fiancee's parents, it was golden.  

So I left the show feeling much better about it than I would have had I left at intermission...which shows you, children, why you stay to the end of shows you think you don't like.  You never know how much it is going to improve!

By the time I had dropped Jeff, and then Ruth off and driven back across town to home, it was after 11 and everyone but Walt had gone to sleep, so I still haven't seen them, but there are signs that they are here, and I look forward to seeing them all in the morning.  Or later in the morning (as it is already creeping toward sunrise as I write this).

Day 51:  I love this picture.  It's so rare they will sit still for a photo!

Get Me to a Vomitorium

It's a myth, you know.  The Romans didn't really have places where they went to vomit after gorging on food so they could eat more. Apparently Aldous Huxley first misused the term in his "Antic Hay" in 1923.  A real vomitorium was "a passage below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheater or stadium through which big crowds could exit rapidly at the end of a performance."

ANYWAY, I want to use the word in its "misused" sense.   I need a place to vomit and empty my stomach so I can start over again.

This morning started after we'd all had a nice night of sleep and I made blueberry waffles for us.  From scratch, even.  Not even with the assistance of Bisquick.  They were yummy too.  I was so glad, later in the morning, that I'd only had one of them, though I was tempted to take a second.   Somehow I knew that I shouldn't.

After Jeri and Phil got dressed, we headed over to Atria for a visit with my mother.

Phil and I checked out each others phones.  He has the Samsung and its picture taking ability is far superior to mine.  E.g., I took this picture with his camera and I took the identical picture with my camera and I could not get both women into the picture.

My mother invited us to have lunch at Atria, but we are eating there tomorrow, at the Sunday brunch, with Ned and Marta so we decided to take her out to lunch. I'm always thinking that an excursion away from Atria will be fun for her. That may have been a mistake.  She has become like Walt's mother, whose appetite had diminished so much that she got angry with restaurants for serving her so much food.  My mother is the same way.  But she's also, like Walt's mother, a product of the Depression and she can't see wasting food, so whatever she can't eat, she has someone wrap up for her, she brings it home, and it sits in her fridge until I throw it away.  When we were served our meals today, she told me more than once that it was "disgusting" that they served so much food (though everyone cleaned their plate except her!)

With her diminished appetite, she also isn't interested in "new" food.  It's really no special thing for her to go to a new restaurant. She almost ordered a veggie pita sandwich (which Jeri had) today. She loves vegetables and this was loaded with all kinds, including mushrooms, her favorite.  But for some reason she went for a turkey sandwich, which is what she has been eating for lunch most of the time for the last couple of years, when she made it for herself in San Rafael and now in the Atria dining room.

But the rest of us embarrassed ourselves by finishing our lunches and we were all so incredibly lazy that we decided we all needed a nap.  We dropped Momma off at Atria and she staggered off to her couch.  The rest of us come home and instantly went to the nearest bed-like thing where we all slept for about an hour.

The last thing I wanted when I woke up--or ever again for the rest of the day--was food, but we had been invited to a BBQ at Ned's friend Jon's house.  Jon is the guy who roasted the whole pig the last time Jeri came home for a visit.  A little bit lower key this year, but still Jon is not noted for skimping on the foodl

It's a good thing my mother didn't come to this dinner!

Before dinner we were treated to the sight of some parachuters jumping from planes, since there are a lot of empty fields around Jon's farm, and the Yolo county airport is nearby.

Ned also made friends with one of Jon's sheep, Periwinkle (the other one, Zinnia, is hidden in this picture)

It was a lovely evening and I didn't feel I ate all that much, so I guess this feeling that I could use a vomitorium is leftover from our lunch.  I don't want to eat again until tomorrow's brunch at Atria.

Midnight Pizza

Today was the big day.  This is the day my mother has been asking about for about two months now.  This day she can remember.   Every day it's "When is Jeri coming?" "When is Jeri coming?"   

Well.  Today was the day.  I told my mother many times that she and Phil would arrive today, but that she would not see them until tomorrow because they would not arrive at the Sacramento airport until 11 p.m.

Walt, his sister, and the kids have developed this text shorthand whenever they are traveling.  Whenever they stop somewhere, they send everyone a one-word message, the word being the name of the place where they have stopped.  It's difficult enough for me to write in 140 characters.  To send a one-word text message goes against the grain.  Sometimes I do it, sometimes not.

But the first Jeri text message came around 2 p.m., when I was visiting my mother.  It said "Logan" and I knew they had made it to the Boston airport.

By the time I got home from visiting my mother, Jeri had had a chat with Walt, saying that they wanted pizza when they got home.  Their flight was delayed in Dallas so they had only enough time to switch planes and no time to get anything to bring on the plane for dinner and knew they would be starving by the time they arrived here (as it would, by that time, be 2 a.m. their time!)

She said Phil would love a Symposium pizza.  Symposium is our local Greek restaurant and they have very good pizza.  In fact, I forgot how good their pizza was.  It's not the typical crust that you get with Italian pizza, but something much lighter, crisper and oilier...probably more calorie-laden, since I like it so much!

So before our dinner, Walt went out and got a Symposium pizza for Jeri and Phil.  He got an extra large because he figured he and I would probably have some too, though we would have had a real dinner by the time they arrived.

At 10:30, Walt drove out to the airport and I cleared off the kitchen table in preparation.

Phil was thrilled that we had Symposium pizza.

Walt even had some beer in the fridge outside, so we all sat around eating pizza and drinking beer (except me, because I was still into water).

Jeri, who does not watch TV, had gotten interested in the TV show Smash since the recent class that she taught did all Smash songs at their concert and she wanted to know what the show was about, so she had just gotten the tapes at the library had a marathon Smash watching session, watching both seasons of the show, and we were talking about it.  Neither Walt nor Phil had seen even one episode of the show, so Walt started a conversation with Phil about football, which Jeri joined and Walt was (jokingly) upset that Jeri had switched from the girl conversation to the boy conversation.

We sat around chatting about theater and dogs and cars and I don't know what all until the Bostonians started to fade, badly.  By the time they staggered off to bed it was 4 a.m. their time.  We had all but finished the whole pizza by then, save for one piece.

 Tomorrow morning after breakfast we'll go over to see my mother and on Sunday Ned and Marta are going to join us and we'll all go to the Sunday brunch, so we have a chance to all visit together.

The trip is going to be a whirlwind, since they have so much to accomplish and need to drive Jeri's new car back to Boston by a certain date.

I'm not sure what my mother and I will talk about after Jeri leaves, but it will be lovely for her to get a chance to visit with Jeri at least briefly.

Friday and Saturday

Happy Birthday, Ned!

I began yesterday by making my 41st blood donation at BloodSource. 

 

I love going to BloodSource.  It's very near our house, it's like a big family when you're there. People remember your name and are so grateful that you've showed up.  Last time I donated, the place was empty...no other donors.   Yesterday it was full and people steadily coming in the frontdoor, which is so good to see.  They have a diary of sorts at the table where you get your snack afterwards, people recording how long they've been coming and why they donate blood.  I wrote something pithy and ended with "...but I miss the donuts."  BloodSource used to be located next door to a donut shop and they always had fresh donuts at the snack table.  For about a year after they moved into their plush new location, they continued to have fresh donuts.  But no more.  They have tons of choices, but I do miss the donuts!

As I feared, there was no word from the people who are holding our television hostage.  Sigh.

Jeri and Phil are in town and have been staying with my mother for the past 3 days, but arrived in Davis yesterday afternoon.  It's always "interesting" when the dogs are let into the house.  I let Polly in first, locking the other two outside for about half an hour.  That seemed to work well.   Polly barked and barked, but quickly calmed down and by the end of the night even let both Jeri and Phil pet her.  Amazing.

Jeri made friends with Sheila.

We had a taco dinner, which involved lots of bowls and lots of chopping, but was easy to put together as a do-it-yourself project.

Fortunately, I had not planned anything that needed microwaving, because the microwave broke.  I fear we are going to have to go shopping for a new microwave.

By the time they left, I was very sleepy (probably from all that loss of blood!) and went right to sleep instead of writing this journal entry.  The fact that I slept until 6 a.m. (with my usual two wake-up times) says that I needed it.

Today I'm doing a Saturday stint at the book store.

The ceremony

This is the 16 minute video of Jeri and Phil's wedding ceremony.

Click To Play